Christmas brought a couple of (self gifted) goodies - new chain & sprockets, rear tire / HD tube, trail tire irons, and some hand guards & spoilers. I also made a couple of other purchases earlier this month; I scored a very nice second hand XR250L Clarke 4.2 gallon tank, as well as an XR250R clutch cover for the hefty sum of $10 bucks! I don't have the requisite oil cooler and lines, but I do plan to pick those up sometime this spring and have them installed prior to the summer. Should definitely help in keeping the oil temps down.

The rest of the goodies were installed over the last couple of weeks. The tank ends up giving me 250-285 miles of range, in comparison to the 150 (including reserve) that I had before. I am *very* happy with the increased fuel range, and it really helps to give me the freedom to stay in the more desolate areas of NC longer, without having to come out to search for gas every few hours.

Size comparison...

I ended up taking a trip this past weekend to do some riding a little bit south of Blowing Rock, NC, in the Pisgah National Forest. There is some great forest service riding in the area and the bike performed flawlessly. I actually rode the bike from the Charlotte area all the way up there and back; the RPMs were perfectly within reason cruising at 55-60mph (still using stock 13/40 gearing), and the... the bike consumed not a drop of oil on this entire trip! Current mileage is somewhere around 10970 or so, which gives me almost 900 miles since the rebuild.

I actually rode 2-up for most of this trip with a lady friend of mine - we're both lightweights, probably coming in at 250lbs combined with full gear. The bike averaged about 60mpg for the portion that we both rode, including a little extra travel time on each side. The Shinko 244s performed just fine, and I suspect I'll keep running them as they seem to make a great dual sport style tire for mild trails, forest service stuff, and general pavement work. I'm a little miffed that I lost some sidewall with the 4.60x18 244, in comparison to the old Kenda 4.60 x 18 that came off. I lost a bit of top end, and I suspect it hurt my fuel economy just a touch.

Future plans... I still need to get some rear turn signals installed, and eventually get the oil cooler and lines to install with the new side cover sometime before the summer. The PO had some sandpaper like material installed, and I'm not really keen on that destroying my pants or tearing up my saddle bags. Tore it off, and I plan to install some more vinyl backing at some future date.

Regardless, I had a great trip and am definitely looking forward to doing some more riding on the XR. This was the first bike shake down trip of sorts, and it went off without any problems at all. I did notice a tiny bit of oil weeping from one of the valve cover adjustment plugs; I'll have to grab a set of replacement o-rings to take care of that problem. I'll be changing the oil and checking the valves over the next few weeks - I'm a bit curious to see if they need any adjustment after a trip like this.